Category: Windows 10

Today Microsoft announced a new feature called Windows Sandbox. Windows Sandbox is built based on Windows Container technology, which allows you to spin up an isolated, temporary, desktop environment where you can run untrusted software. The software you run and install in the Windows Sandbox does not affect the host. If you shut down the Windows Sandbox all changes and all software you installed in the Sandbox are gone again. This sounds very similar to the technology Windows Defender Application Guard already used to build a sandbox environment for Microsoft Edge.

Windows Sandbox Overview

Windows Sandbox has the following properties:

Part of Windows – everything required for this feature ships with Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise. No need to download a VHD!

Pristine – every time Windows Sandbox runs, it’s as clean as a brand-new installation of Windows

Disposable – nothing persists on the device; everything is discarded after you close the application

Secure – uses hardware-based virtualization for kernel isolation, which relies on the Microsoft’s hypervisor to run a separate kernel which isolates Windows Sandbox from the host

Windows Sandbox brings the advantages of Windows Containers and also adds a desktop. If you compare this to a Windows 10 Virtual Machine, the Windows Sandbox will consume much fewer resources, it starts up match faster and will be much more efficient with hardware resources. You can think of it like a lightweight virtual machine, which can share the same hardware but also the same kernel and memory as the host system (like a container).

Microsoft Switzerland just announced the Microsoft “Pop-Up” House in Zürich. The Microsoft House in Zürich will offer different experiences to dive into the Microsoft world.

Over the next three months, the Microsoft House offers you the opportunity to visit events and workshops and experience our technologies, solutions and latest Surface devices. We look forward to talking to you about your business and what’s important for you and invite you to work with us in our 300 m2 co-working space.

The opening will take place on Monday, December 10th at 12.00 pm. The Microsoft House is located at Poststrasse 5, a few steps away from Paradeplatz, in Zurich.

The Microsoft House in Zürich offers:

A temporary Microsoft Store – To discover and buy the latest Microsoft Surface devices and accessories.

Experience – You can experience the latest technology like Microsoft Surface devices, HoloLens, Mixed Reality and even the dive into the world of artificial intelligence. Or just enjoying playing games on the latest Xbox One X and explore the history of Microsoft. You can also join workshops for things like Office 365 and more.

Open Workspace – There is even a 300m2 co-working pace which you can use.

Today my early Christmas gift to myself, just arrived, the Microsoft Surface Headphones. Yes, Microsoft at their Surface Event in October, announced a new product called the Surface Headphones. The Surface Headphones are wireless noise cancelling headphones. This is especially handy when travelling or in a open space office. The will compete with products like the Bose Quiet Comfort 35 II and the Sony WH-1000XM3. If you are travelling a lot, especially if you fly a lot, you will never ever want to travel without noise cancelling headphones. By myself I was using the first generation Bose Quiet Comfort 35, which were my steady travel companion. I was really happy with it, even the sound quality could have been slightly better. However, with Microsoft releasing the Surface Headphones, it was time for an upgrade.

Of course, I didn’t really have time to test them yet, but I wanted quickly share my first impression and a little review about the Surface Headphones.

First of all, I really like the design and build quality, the have this premium feel and design, like the other Microsoft Surface products.

Boy the feel comfortable. Even do they are heavier than my Bose QC 35, the feel lighter and very good when wearing them. Especially when being on a flight for over 10 hours, this is a must.

Setup is so easy, Cortana on the Surface Headphones let you quickly go through the whole setup process and everything just worked like you expect it to be. No pairing errors or things like this.

They work great with Windows 10, iOS or Android.

With Cortana you can also use voice commands to check your calendar or play your Spotify playlist.

Connecting multiple devices like the Surface Book 2 and my phone at the same time, is really useful. Especially when a Skype for Business or Microsoft Teams call comes in, you can easily switch to your PC.

In my opinion the sound quality of the Surface Headphones is better than on my Bose QC 35, and it is a joy to listen to music. Again, I am not a sound enthusiast, but for me the quality is really good.

One of the unique features are the wheels or dial on the side. The wheel on the right allows you just adjust the volume and the wheel on the left allows you to adjust the level of noise cancellation. I like the wheels much better than, the buttons on my Bose headphones, they are way easier reachable.

The Surface Headphones also have buttons on the side, which allow you to pick up and end calls, skip to the next track, pause and resume music playback.

You cannot only regulate the level of noise cancellation, you can even amplify the background around you, which is handy when someone starts talking to you.

Overall the first impressions of the Surface Headphones has been great, and I can’t wait to test them on my first trips. They are a great edition to the other Surface Peripherals.

If you are living not in the US or UK you can order them from www.bigapplebuddy.com. If you are using the coupon code “THOMASMAURER” you will get $10 off their 1st Big Apple Buddy purchase. This not only works for the Surface Headphones but for other items as well.

Microsoft today released the new Windows Server 2019 again. After they quickly released Windows Server 2019 during Microsoft Ignite, they removed the builds again, after some quality issues. However, today Microsoft made the Windows Server 2019 builds available again. Microsoft also released new Windows Server 2019 Container Images for Windows, Windows Server Core and Nano Server.

Download Windows Server 2019 Container Images

You can get them from the new Microsoft Container Registry (MCR).

Microsoft was hosting their container images on Docker Hub until they switch to MCR (Microsoft Container Registry). This is now the source for all Windows Container Images like Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016 and all the Semi-Annual Channel releases like Windows Server, version 1709 or Windows Server, version 1803.

However, if you want to browse through container images, Docker Hub continues to be the right place to discover container images. Steve Lasker wrote a blog post about how Microsoft syndicates the container catalog and why.

Download Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server SAC Container Images

Also the existing Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server, version 1803 and Windows Server 1709 container images moved to the Microsoft Container Registry (MCR).

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# Here is the old string for pulling a container

# docker pull microsoft/windowsservercore:ltsc2016

# docker pull microsoft/nanoserver:1709

# Change the string to the new syntax and use the same tag

docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:ltsc2016

docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/windows/nanoserver:1709

You should also make sure to update your Dockerfile references:

Old Windows Server Dockerfile reference

FROM microsoft/windowsservercore:ltsc2016

New Windows Server Dockerfile reference

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:ltsc2016

Removing the “latest” tag from Windows Images

We strongly encourage you to instead declare the specific container tag you’d like to run in production. The ‘latest’ tag is the opposite of specific; it doesn’t tell the user anything about what version the container actually is apart from the image name. You can read more about version compatibility and selecting the appropriate tag on our container docs.

Removing Container Images

If you want to remove existing container images from your PC, you can run docker rmi to remove a specific image. You can also remove all containers and container images with the following commands:

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# Remove all containers

docker rm$(docker ps-a-q)

# Remove all container images

docker rmi$(docker images-q)

If you want to know more about Windows Containers and the Microsoft container eco system, visit the Microsoft container docs.

A couple of Windows 10 releases back, Microsoft delivered the Windows Subsystem for Linux. The Windows Subsystem for Linux allows you to run Linux distros, like Ubuntu, Debian, Suse and others, on Windows 10. Around the Microsoft Ignite 2018 timeframe another distro was released to the Windows Store called WLinux. WLinux is a Linux environment for Windows 10 built on work by Microsoft Research and the Debian project. WLinux is a custom Linux distro built from Debian specifically for use on the WSL. While other distros are available for WSL, WLinux is the first optimized for use by users of WSL for WSL. It helps developer run Linux tooling on Windows and integrates into perfectly into Windows.

WLinux Setup

WLinux comes with a custom setup, to prepare your environment in a very simple and easy wizard. It lets you setup some predefined software and settings and configure integration into Windows.

WLinux WSL Docker Bridge to Windows

If you want to run Docker in the Windows Subsystem for Linux, you can bring the Docker Client to the Windows Docker Engine. This allows you to run Docker directly from WSL and from PowerShell at the same time.

Microsoft Tooling

Of course WLinux brings the usual Linux development tools and easy setup for Ruby, NodeJS, Go, Java, Python, editors like emacs and even different shells. You can also easily add Microsoft tooling by adding Azure CLI, PowerShell Core and even Visual Studio Code.

Windows Explorer Integration and WSL Utilities (wslu)

It easily lets you to setup Windows Explorer integration and brings wslu, a collection of utilities for WSL, preinstalled. Wslu bringt the following features to the WSL

wslusc This is a WSL shortcut creator to create a shortcut on your Windows 10 Desktop.

wslsys This is a WSL system information printer to print out some basic system information.

wslfetch This is a WSL Screenshoot Information Tool to print information in an elegant way.

wslupath This is a WSL Windows path Converter that can convert Windows path to other styles of path.

wslview This is a fake WSL browser that can help you open link in default Windows browser.

If you have been following on social media in the last couple of days, you might have seen that I had the chance to speak at different conferences and events like SCOM Day in Gothenburg and Cloud Camp in Dublin. I also had the possibility to visit the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, and meet with the Windows Insider team. I was one of the lucky winners of the Insiders2Campus contest this summer and as a price I had was able to meet with the Windows team.

I have been a Windows Insider for the first day, and I am always excited to try out new features and give feedback to the engineering teams. Having the chance to meet with the team behind the Windows Insider program, was a great opportunity. I was able to visit the Microsoft Campus a couple of times already, for example for the Microsoft MVP Summits. But the Windows Insider team organized some special visits on places I never really had access to before.

We had the chance to visit the Microsoft Garage. The Garage is a resource to Microsoft employees that supports and encourages problem solving in new and innovative ways, ultimately empowering people to achieve more. It is also a great place for hackathons within Microsoft. This is the place where cool Microsoft products like Microsoft Launcher for Android and the Outlook plugin, FindTime were created.

Another place which you need to visit if you are on the Microsoft Campus, is the Microsoft Treehouse office. The Treehouse is basically an outdoor meeting space in the trees.

As part of the Windows Insiders2Campus visit, we also had the chance to try out Microsoft HoloLens and other Microsoft products.

There was obviously a lot more to see, like the Microsoft Envisioning Center, the Surface Lab and much more. But the greatest thing really was to meet the team behind the products. Really big thanks to the Windows Insider team, which made this possible. I think this was an unforgettable experience and if you ever have the chance to visit the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, it is definitely worth a visit.

If you are interested becoming a Windows Insider for Windows 10, Windows Server or other products and services, check out the Windows Insider site.

Today I have a simple blog post, which is more less just a note for myself. If you are join your Windows 10 device to a Wireless Network and you can’t remember the Wireless Password or Key you can recover this using the netsh command. Simply run this command to show the network key of the wireless network:

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netsh WLAN show profile name="WirelessNetwork"key=clear

To list the wireless networks you have access to, you can use the following command:

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About

My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team and engage with the community and customers around the world. I am located in Switzerland. I am focusing on Microsoft technologies, especially cloud and datacenter solutions based on Microsoft Azure, Azure Stack and Windows Server. Opinions are my own.